Council mtg 2/13

There didn't seem to be much debate of anything tonight. However, in my prior post about the meeting, I did miss one point which I discussed at the meeting. It was an item on the consent calendar... the consent calendar which I've said usually gets largely ignored during Council deliberations.

Anyway, the consent calendar item related to the beginning of the process we would follow in applying for a grant. And while I normally raise my hand without much deliberation in applying for grants... this wasn't a "fully-funded" grant, it was a "matching" grant. That is to say, the town would pay 20% of the cost of the project (for the Dime Savings property). And with the total cost being $60,000 and the town spending $12,000, I had to stop to think about it. I mean, protecting the environment is important. But we can't lose sight of the fact that this project would still cost money.

Having read the packet though, I realized that the Town had recently lost access to the only parking available for the Dime Savings property. It was water company property (I had parked there before when I went to check out the property about two years ago) so they could take away access at any time. And it makes sense to me that if we have a property, we should have parking available... even just a basic gravel lot.

So when I read that the $60k proposal included $10k for a gravel lot, I concluded that we should definitely move forward with this grant request. And who is to say that we end up requesting $60k? If groups, such as Scouts, provide some labor (which I bet some scouts would like to use this as an Eagle Scout project), then the $60k cost could come down. And the town's 20% share could also come down. But we'd still get $8k toward the cost of the gravel lot... assuming the grant is approved.

Of course, there are other good reasons to request this money. But the need to build a gravel lot made the decision easy for me.

Anything else of interest come up during the meeting?

Tim White
Town Council, 4th District